


take or leave me (please say take)

by erzi



Category: Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game)
Genre: (but vil doesn't realize w/ his real eyes), Angst, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26956588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erzi/pseuds/erzi
Summary: Vil holds up his right hand, glaring at it. "In taking too long to perfect the eyeshadow, I overexerted my hand. I can't use it without it hurting, and unfortunately I am not adept enough with my left to put complicated makeup on."Concern flashes in Rook's eyes, and that stirs conflict in Vil. There is bitterness, because Rook cares only that a beautiful thing has been ruined; there is hope, because if Rook is honest with his feelings, surely he'd also be with this gesture."May I see?" Rook asks, with the politeness a knight would proffer a royal.Vil hesitates. It's one thing for Rook to know of his flaws, but that he could see them tightens his jaw.
Relationships: Rook Hunt/Vil Schoenheit
Comments: 27
Kudos: 80





	take or leave me (please say take)

Red as autumn apples, smoother than a well-placed word—the cream eyeshadow is done. Vil slides his goggles to his scalp, right hand shaking as he takes the small glass pot and briskly leaves the lab, its lighting proven a thing of magic: outside, the moon grins over Pomefiore's spires. 

Had so many hours truly passed? Vil's expression is counter to the moon's affability. He must sleep; time spent working rather than resting will etch itself onto his face, and to be anything lesser than beautiful is unthinkable. To be good is not to be the best.

No one else is up this late, offering him some satisfaction; he has polished Pomefiore's values this much. The only things that see Vil through the marble-tiled halls are the chandeliers, glass glittering with their own refracted light, a feathered hat taking shape in one of those hazy pools of white.

Vil whips his head around. There is no one watching in the corner—but, until he noticed, there had been. He knows it with the certainty of a queen who knows she has been dethroned. Unlike one, soft resignation reigns in him.

 _Rook's not coming, is he,_ he thinks, resuming his walk. In making himself briefly known, Rook had wanted Vil to know he'd waited for him. This late at night, it's how he speaks his worry; if he had actually talked to Vil, he'd only have prolonged Vil's sleeplessness, worsening his complexion for the morning. So tomorrow he will definitely come.

Vil loosens his braid, tucking stray strands behind his warming ear, thankful for the solitude he's been granted.

* * *

The mirror tells Vil the skin under his eyes is tingeing purple. It would be unnoticeable at a distance maintained by conversation; he would need to be held as if for a kiss to then be scorned for his appearance.

He sits back, spine in contact with his chair. Slowly he reaches for his under-eye concealer, and again, just as when he'd first picked it, his hand throbs in pain.

He sets it down on the vanity with a loud _click_ that masks his own tongue sharp and displeased behind his teeth. The flesh at the base of his thumb is tender from yesterday's prolonged lab work: too much weighing, pipetting, scraping, mixing. A model is to push their body to its limits in ultimate refinement. He'd pushed too much and will suffer for it.

It's a problem. Without a steady hand, his makeup will be subpar. A small mercy that it is Saturday and there are no lectures today that would require him to write; that, too, would be painful.

All with his left hand: primer patted below his eyes, concealer blended. The movements are unnatural. He scrutinizes his face. Perhaps no eye makeup today will be best; that requires greater precision than he can muster left-handed. He can do a bold lip, instead, to draw attention away from his bare eyes.

Two knocks at the door, subdued enough to let someone sleeping lie, prominent enough to be heard by someone awake. Only one person it could be.

"You can come in, Rook," Vil says, catching himself smile. He puts it away, like his hands, folded on his lap.

The door is quiet in opening, but that is like a scream compared to Rook's soundless steps. "Merci," he says. On the mirror, Vil watches Rook approach. Rook stops next to him, placing his hand on the chair, and Vil must keep himself sitting primly as he can. "How are you this fine morning? Did you sleep well?"

"I slept fine."

Rook's reflection raises an eyebrow. "And what of the first question, roi du poison? Was last night's endeavor worth it?"

The answer is always supposed to be yes. Vil does not pursue that which will weaken him. 

"Ah," Rook says, "you were making makeup?"

Vil's eyes track his, resting on the eyeshadow. It's one of many on the vanity, but of course Rook would notice a new one. Of course. "I was," he says, pride in his creation and its observation. "I wanted a red this deep."

"It is a lovely shade, and it will be loveliest on you!"

Certainly others see Rook as his sycophant. No one could be that supportive without ulterior motives, least of all a vice-dorm leader to his superior. But it's no flattery served by a silver tongue. That he deems Vil the fairest of them all is simply Rook's unabashed truth.

"I find it strange," Rook continues, "that you've yet to put it or any makeup on except under-eye concealer. Even your hair is down. I wonder if you slept as fine as you claim you did." His eyes drift to Vil, but as Vil is fixed on the Rook on the mirror, Vil meets them only as an outsider would, and not for the one who is gazed upon. "What's the matter?"

He does not ask _if_ something is the matter, simply what. Nothing about Vil evades Rook's keen sight; everything about him he would hear preached.

Vil holds up his right hand, glaring at it. "In taking too long to perfect the eyeshadow, I overexerted my hand. I can't use it without it hurting, and unfortunately I am not adept enough with my left to put complicated makeup on."

Concern flashes in Rook's eyes, and that stirs conflict in Vil. There is bitterness, because Rook cares only that a beautiful thing has been ruined; there is hope, because if Rook is honest with his feelings, surely he'd also be with this gesture.

"May I see?" Rook asks, with the politeness a knight would proffer a royal.

Vil hesitates. It's one thing for Rook to know of his flaws, but that he could see them tightens his jaw. He forcibly unclenches his teeth and obliges Rook, turning his head away, but his eyes betray him by wandering to the mirror.

Though he does not need eyes to feel Rook's hand gentle on his, kneading around the swollen area. "That does indeed look painful," he says, quietly. His fingers cease their probing to loosely wrap around Vil's hand. "Shall I fetch you ice to reduce the swelling?"

"If you would."

Rook smiles. "Mais bien sûr! Afterward, I will do your makeup." 

Vil blinks. "Rook," he starts, but he's already gone. He stares down at his hand and rubs circles on it with his thumb in part to ease the pain, in part as if it will transfer Rook's touch to his bones.

Rook returns with ice in a silk handkerchief; he ties it deftly and puts it to Vil's palm, who holds it steady. He contemplates Vil's cosmetics collection. "What look were you thinking of today?"

"Rook, you don't need to do this," Vil says, ignoring the cloth-muffled sting of the ice as he presses it firmer than needed. "This is my fault for being negligent on what my body can take." He glances at his left hand. "It will be a good opportunity to increase my dexterity."

"It would be. But you won't shine as brightly, and we can't have that." 

Everything for beauty, and beauty only. The concept over the person.

Rook places a hand at his heart. "I promise I can polish you as finely as you could yourself. You worked hard to make that eyeshadow, so you should use it, non?" He picks it up, turning it this way and that. "It's unusual that you choose to create a cream eyeshadow. The sooner you debut it, the better. Especially in this weather! The color of the leaves wonderfully matches what you made. Though the greatest beauty is in its contrast with your eyes." He bends and moves the eyeshadow by Vil's eyes, looking between the two. "Red against purple, evoking our dorm's colors! Your sense of beauty and metaphor is marvelous." He flicks his eyes to Vil's mouth. "I could add black lipstick, and a hint of gold on your lids and lips, to complete the essence of Pomefiore?"

Rook's eyes are too much, even for someone as practiced in temperance as Vil. He casts his head aside and thinks it over. What Rook proposes, Vil would wear. But today it would not be by his own hand. 

It's not that Rook is incapable of applying makeup; he's second only to Vil. It's that Vil needs help at all. (It's that having Rook lean in close to trace the shape of his face would undo him.)

"I know I talk a lot," Rook says, pulling himself up, "but you haven't said anything yet, and I know you have an opinion on it."

Vil should refuse; this is his burden to bear. But he wants it. Oh, how he wants it.

The ice at his palm burns colder as he says, with each word measured, "You are Pomefiore's vice-dorm leader. Do what you think is best for us."

His curtness has offended others before. 

Others are not Rook.

Rook flings a smile at Vil. "You won't be disappointed."

"I better not be," Vil replies, knowing Rook will take it for the seriousness of their roles within the dorm. Should they prove unworthy, they will lose their titles. But, for himself, half of it had been said in jest. Rook can never be anything but incredible.

Rook searches through Vil's makeup and brush cases, grabbing what he needs. "I don't think you require foundation—today or any other day. You already did your eyebrows—for your earlier run, I presume—so I will start with your eyes." 

The corner of Vil's mouth flits briefly up. "You saw me?" he asks, simply to hear the answer, sweeter than any fruit.

"You were wearing sunglasses," Rook says, squeezing out a smidge of eye primer onto the back of his hand. "And you were by yourself." He picks up the eye primer with a flat brush, and then looks to Vil. "Please close your eyes."

Vil complies. The pleasant lighting in his room and the peachiness of his own lids is all-enveloping. The things in his room leave faint impressions of shadows. Rook does not take any nameable shape, but the color he takes up behind Vil's eyes is darker, approaching, and it couldn't be anyone but him: Vil would not allow anyone else in so intimately.

Gentle pressure on Vil's eye, the movements practiced. It's over quickly: the pressure retracts, the darkness recedes.

Vil mourns it.

"I think," Rook says, and Vil peeks open an eye, "that the eyeshadow you made yesterday will suffice alone. I'll build it along your crease and blend it to faintness toward the middle. It will appear as if it is from your own skin that the reddest color blooms."

Vil's eye shuts. "I said for you to do as you see fit. You don't need to explain yourself to me." What is left unsaid, but obvious: _I trust you._

Rook's laugh is quiet. "As you wish," he says, the last word breathed light as a feather over Vil's cheek—Rook has bent to his level. Light as a feather, but it raises the flight of a murder of crows trapped in Vil's chest.

As Rook works, he doesn't breathe; all Vil feels is the sweep of the brush at the corners of his eyes and along his lower lashlines. Another brush, denser, diffuses out the cream higher on his crease. The flat patting that follows must be the gold shimmer. A pop: an eyeliner opened.

"I will have to rest my hand on your cheek to line your eyes," Rook murmurs.

Vil nods consent, nothing revealed of the mad beat his heart takes, or how swiftly the ice at his hand seems to melt.

What goes on his skin feels like the fleshy curve of Rook's hand and the indentation from his littlest finger. Despite it serving as Rook's support, he hardly puts weight into it—the touch might as well be to brush away errant tears, a comfort not meant to linger. Resisting being the one to lean in takes all of Vil's strength.

The eyeliner goes on smoothly and coolly. Rook pulls away too soon and says, "Please open your eyes so I can put on mascara."

He does, and he sees Rook just a kiss away, face kind as he knows it to be. This is only the distance he must keep to continue the makeup. Vil has no time to adjust his vision or prepare himself to see Rook be so close, such that he blurs. Vil, breath trapped in his throat, watches Rook watch him. But not how he yearns for. 

Where Vil will perfume himself to complement his makeup, Rook smells like nothing. It might be better that way. If his proximity was coupled with his touch and his scent, then Vil—

A mild breeze quivers in the space Rook had occupied as he steps back. "Almost done!" he says, capping the mascara.

Vil's exhale is milder. He regards his reflection. The look is incomplete but already exactly as he'd envisioned from Rook's description. Particularly the red eyeshadow. For being only one shade, made darker or lighter by blending, it's impressive. The gold shimmer adds to the illusion of a wider palette used; the eyeliner, black and thin as a receding night, dramatizes the red's deepness without distracting.

"Do you like it so far?" Rook asks.

"I do." One smile: he allows himself to show this, if he will not speak of fondness. "You did incredibly with my eyeshadow."

"You flatter me! Truly, it is only because you made it." He picks up a lipstick—one Vil also made—and admires it. "Anything and everything of yours is beautiful." He looks at Vil, and Vil finds he still glitters with that adoration.

But it's as one deems a work of art magnificent, isn't it? Rook has said it before: he acts for his own aesthetics, aligned with Pomefiore's interests, embodied by Vil. Had Vil dull hair or asymmetrical eyes or a laugh too loud, Rook would not obey him. Vil has no delusions of what his diligence in his being has reaped him. He has no delusions, and that is why it hurts. The pain of self-realization: it's not who he is, but what he is, that keeps Rook by his side.

The spell of his own wretched thoughts is broken with Rook's finger under his chin, tipping it up, forcing Vil to look at him. Everything falls away except Rook, highlighted by morning sun, his lips parted in unthinking sympathy as he thumbs Vil's bottom lip down to paint it black. Next the top, creamily following the bow of Vil's lip one half at a time. 

Rook turns to the vanity to grab a gold lip gloss, retracing the path he'd taken, scorching it anew. He smiles. "C'est fini," he says, straightening. His gaze settles over Vil like a winter cloak, heavy and slow and warm; the ice at Vil's hand is half the size it was. He gestures grandly to the mirror. "Won't you see for yourself?"

He already does, twinned in Rook's eyes. The him reflected is not large enough for proper judgment, but there is nowhere else he'd rather look at.

"I don't need to," Vil says, certain of what this thought, exposed to words, will lead to.

“Whyever not?"

"Am I not Pomefiore?"

"You are."

"And are you not the heart that beats at its center?"

Rook hesitates. Praise is what he gives, not receives.

"You are," Vil answers for him, the heat Rook had transferred by touch given back to him through words. "And that makes you mine. You said yourself everything of mine is beautiful." His shoulders settle back. "There is no need for me to verify what is the absolute truth."

For who they are, it's not a presumptuous declaration. Had they taken the smallest misstep even once in their lives they would not be here, leader and follower, and _that_ is what threatens to shake it. What of Vil's ardent veracity then?

(He would feel the same. But to admit that is to yield to weakness, that which would push away Rook in a misguided attempt to pull him. Buried it must stay.)

Nothing gets past Rook's senses; though he is silent, he has heard what Vil has said. 

_But does he understand?_ Vil wonders, gaze fiercer, willing Rook to speak.

Finally, he does. "You're very kind," he says, offering a half-smile, "but I wish you'd looked. I fear I smudged your lipstick the slightest, and now I am undeserving of your compliment." He puts his back to Vil as he rummages the vanity for a cotton ball and makeup remover. He finds both, soaking the cotton ball. His hair flutters as he bows down abruptly to wipe Vil's lipstick away. The remover is oily, sheen clinging to Vil's skin in the lipstick's place.

And Rook cups Vil's cheek as if he's made of glass. His thumb is poised at the left corner of his lip, and sweet as a poem it glides, remover itself removed. But not his thumb, going where it had first been. Not his eyes, always on Vil as a whole; but this look, intent on Vil's mouth, is one of a hunter facing long-awaited prey. 

Positions, inversed: Rook is the one to turn away, hand withdrawing.

The silk with its ice falls, unceremoniously, as Vil snaps his hand around Rook's wrist, trapping it in place, earning him Rook's eyes again. Their rightful place is on him.

"Rook," he says, and if it is the start or the end of his sentence depends on Rook's next move.

"Mon roi," he steadily replies, hand secured to Vil's cheek an affirmation that it is not just Vil's hand that keeps him here.

Vil swallows the last of his regrets. "Would you do anything I asked?"

"I would."

"Even if I asked you to cut out someone's heart?"

"I'd offer it to you on a satin pillow."

"Even if I asked you to kiss me?"

Standing that still, that exquisitely, Rook could be a painting. "I," he says, mouth just barely moving, "would ask where, first, to best please you."

"My hand," Vil says, "to mark your devotion."

Without taking his eyes off him, Rook reaches for Vil's other hand, finding it nimbly despite his willing blindness. He dips his head to press his lips into the juncture of Vil's knuckles, uneven by its nature, uneven too in its consequences: Vil's heartbeat, unstable.

"My cheek," Vil continues, raising his chin, "as your proper thanks."

Rook places Vil's hand back to his lap. Then he leans in, closing nearly completely the distance left between them, to chastely kiss the curve of his cheek. Anyone careless could have cut themselves on the edge of Vil's bones, but Rook is mindful. He draws back but stays to Vil's side, eyes expectant, obvious even from a skewed glance.

And Vil tells the empty air in front of him, "My mouth." No reason given. Must desires be justified? Here, especially, when Rook has to have gleaned this was Vil's intent?

Rook does not recoil, nor does he linger on the imperfect skin Vil has covered up. All he says: "Your makeup will be ruined."

Vil draws his eyes to him with the speed and cut of a dagger. "So ruin it."

Rook should protest. His handiwork will be for naught, yes, but he's not a thing; he is his own person, above Pomefiore's exactness. If he does not want to do something this intimate, he should protest.

So that Vil has no chance to breathe because Rook, mouth fitting too perfectly over Vil's, robs him of any air he might have taken—it must mean that this is his autonomy, and not an order's fulfilment. It must.

Vil's hold on him, never parted, tightens; Rook deepens the kiss, leaving not one part of Vil's mouth unloved. His mouth slides easily, aided by the lipstick, smearing the proof of what Rook carves onto Vil. 

Vil almost, almost weakens; a small sound of utter surrender dies in his throat, but he is not able to kill the need to twine his hands around Rook's neck, urging him closest yet, not a single hope of separation possible. Ignoring the ache in his hand, he threads possession through Rook's softly-blunted hair. The only sharpness to Rook is in his arrows, and one has long dug itself in Vil's heart. Now, it sings, not of pain but passion.

Their height difference, opposite with Vil sitting and Rook standing, depletes as Rook sinks to his level, lower and lower to Vil's demands. So low Rook steeps that Vil's knee between his legs is not something arisen but simply there, ripe for the taking. Rook makes a sound in natural occurrence: it begins as a hum and ends as a gasp, open but quiet as a secret just divulged. 

Except it's not. No one is weak to Vil. Rook likes the heat of Vil's lips on his, ever-changing; the pressure between his legs in the art between pleasure and pain; the aimless patterns traced by Vil's fingers on his hair. 

Abruptly, Vil breaks them off—enough to make it obvious he is not merely drawing in breath, but that he _means_ that break. Rook does not seek him out. At this height, his eyes appear dark, and it's nothing of the way his fringed hair drapes him in staggered shadows. The lipstick has smeared onto him, gracelessly, not applied but given, and precisely for that it's beautiful.

Vil briefly bites the inside of his cheek. "Do you want me?"

Out of his focus, Vil sees Rook's chest rise in a long, silent inhale. "I do."

Who doesn't? To be desired is the obvious and in that it becomes worthless; it is the fruit picked for Vil's sowings. 

To be loved is something no strictly-adhered health regime nor elegant cosmetics can bestow. 

The most important question he has for Rook is the one he cannot ask. Rook would say yes, believing his love true, but it would be founded on shallowness; on the facade of Vil Schoenheit, the apple of the world's eye. Not the person, absorbed by chasing a perfection that probably doesn't exist. Anathema to Rook's ideals. 

He won't ask it, and so it rots on his tongue like wine forgotten in its fermentation.

A crease forms in Rook's brow. "Is there something else you wish to tell me?"

"There is not." Said too quickly. 

Rook's clothes whisper as he shuffles forward, mouth to Vil's ear. "You do know I always speak nothing but the truth?"

 _Yes_. In hearing Rook's response to the question Vil won't ask, it would make his fears real. He will never hear what he wants to. No one can see past his glamor, painted on too thick, and into the gore. Rook might think he'd tell the truth, but honesty is what everyone thinks of themselves when there is only ever greed. It takes different forms in different people. Vil's is a perfectionist greed; Rook's is of aesthetics. That complement is why their partnership rules Pomefiore so well. 

It's why a romance would poison them both.

Vil tilts his head, mouth skimming Rook's cheek. "I don't want to hear you speak. Just kiss me." An undertone of _please_ , in that regal command. A plead for a distraction, because to further dwell on anything deeper they could be and will not be—

As Rook shifts, Vil sees his eyes. Infinite sadness, held impossibly in something with an end, and in the way he meets Vil's lips anew.

Melancholy, it turns out, tastes bitter.

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't make rook curl vil's eyelashes before mascara bc that shit terrifies me
> 
> title modified from a lyric in [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7QEyMc-aeQ)


End file.
